Walter Behlen (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Walter Dietrich Behlen (October 16, 1905 - July 26, 1994) was born on a small farm near Columbus, Nebraska. He was the second of nine children born to Fred and Ella Behlen. His high school education was interrupted by illness, but he returned to school at age 20, and received his diploma at age 23. He married Ruby Cumming in 1940; the couple had two children.Behlen began his industrial career and the Behlen Manufacturing Company as a one-man operation in 1936. While working as a railway express man, he began producing steel toe caps for wooden-soled industrial shoes using various hand tools, a grinder poured from scrap metal, and a homemade forge he had installed in his garage workshop. During this time he also invented a lid clamp for wooden egg cases, which became "the first of a long line of products completely designed and fabricated in our factory."